I tend to favor the serial comma, though I do make exceptions. One context in which it should ALWAYS be used is in lists of place names, particularly countries -- unless one is referring to sports teams. Thus one might say Australia, Canada, England and Wales, if the latter two nations are fielding a joint effort.

As for other songs about punctuation, there seem to be dozens. For example:"Dash", by Jet Monmonga"Slash", by Long John Hunter"Slash Dot Dash", by Fatboy Slim"Semi Colon", by Pure Sound"Period", by Eric Wilson

"A, B and C" and "A, B, and C" are both correct.  When to insert the comma after B is a stylistic choice of the author.

But the choice is not meaningless.  The comma signals a bit of a pause; and it is up to the author to sense whether it is good to pause at that spot.

Usually, when the elements are very brief, especially if they are single words, I do not use the second comma.  E.g., "They visited Prague, Vienna and Bratislava."  But even then, the context makes a difference.  A teacher, wanting to be very clear, might say this: "For next week, you are to have read Hamlet, Macbeth, and King Lear."  But an exasperated student's related remark could be written, "Can you believe that jerk!, he wants us to read Hamlet, Macbeth and King Lear all by Monday!"

A complication in the penultimate element will usually merit a comma.  E.g., "The course on Paul dealt only with Romans, First Corinthians, Second Corinthians and Galatians"; but, "... Romans, First and Second Corintians, and Galatians."

When the elements are of several words, the comma usually is required for clarity, as well as for catching one's breath.  E.g., "The art students concentrated on Giotto in Assisi, on the Lorenzettis in Siena, and on Masaccio in Florence."  "Having received a rejection letter from RISD, poor Donatella launched herself from the kitchen, gathered speed in the hall, shot up the stairs, and impacted her bed in a kind of tear-moistened crater."

Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.

To me, any phrase that could use the Oxford comma but lacks it is sort of naked, and not in a good way. I have very strong feelings on this topic!

I, too, am all about the Oxford comma, bro.  People who don't use it are just plain lazy, I tell you.  Yes, I'm talking about you: Dancer, Prancer, Donner, and Blitzen.  Yes, I said it, ", and Blitzen"!

Also, reeeeealllly hate the use of a non-quoted comma (or other punctuation) within a quoted term, title, or phrase within a sentence.

Example:  He said that he would meet us "at the bridge," but what he really meant is anyone's guess.

I prefer the British style on this.  If the punctuation mark is not part of the quoted material, keep it outside the quotes.

Now back to your regularly scheduled program.

www.NoPunProductions.com ~ AmericaTheGreen.org

Passionate writer/editor available for hire.  :-)

www.NoPunProductions.com ~ AmericaTheGreen.org

Now I know.  I agree with Roz.  Leaving it out makes the sentence look naked.  Plus it can make you stumble while you try to figure out if you understand the sentence correctly.  

Since when did the slash replace the hyphen? People used to be writer-editors, hunter-gatherers or painters and sculptors. Now they are writer/editors, hunter/gatherers or painters/sculptors. The world's gone slash happy. With all do respect: yuck.

The only reason not to use the Oxford (serial) comma is if you can't stand anything that sounds British, in which case you should still use it and refer to it as the serial comma.

The writer's job is to make the reader's job as easy as possible.  Not using a serial comma transfers work from the writer to the reader, who must pause and think, if only for a second, if they have just read about a list of two things or three.

Save the world: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions 5% annually.

Oh, god... you've struck a nerve. It drives me insane, to drink, and up the wall that the NYT doesn't use it... they edited it out of a letter of mine that they printed. The gall!

While "A, B and C" is strictly speaking correct, it is easier to read the series comma. For example, when reading a list, the comma signifies the end of an item in the list:

"pina coladas, walking in the rain, and sun."

"pina coladas, walking in the rain and sun."

The first is unambiguous, the second is not!

"literature, environmental justice and politics, and walking in the rain."

Here, the absence of a comma between "justice" and "and" signifies to a reader (who expects the series comma to be used, as it should be) that "justice and politics" both belong to "environmental," and that there is another item coming. If a person doesn't expect the series comma to be used, they have to read until the end of the sentence to parse it correctly.

Greta,
I too used to worry rather a lot about the choreography of commas, periods and closing quotation marks.  And I too used to favor the British usage.  But it finally seemed a battle not worth fighting, so I have ended up siding with the Americans on this one.  As an editor, you surely understand that in cases like that, consistency should be preserved.

On the other hand, question marks and exclamation points are a serious matter.  It bothers the hell out of me to see a sentence punctuated like this:
<<
Did he say he would meet us "at the bridge?"
>>

Note this correct distinction:
<<
That shameless concubine, Anne Boleyn, actually dares to style herself "Queen of England"!
>>

but:
<<
As Henry and Anne processed from their wedding chapel through the crowded streets of London, many onlookers could be heard angrily shouting such insults as "Whore!," "Sorceress!," and "God save our true Queen, Katherine!"
>>

JMG,
I cannot entirely agree with your suggestion that this thing that DR and others call the "Oxford comma" (surely unjustly: I am sure there are plenty of fine people at Oxford who cannot give a damn about it, and who think that the authoritarian twit who pontificated about it is full of pish) saves the reader work.

As I wrote before, the context counts.  The comma, signaling a slight pause, is often needed for the sake of making careful distinctions, as one of Mihan's examples shows, as well as for the sake of keeping the reader from passing too quickly and thoughtlessly from the element that it follows.

E.g., note how the opening iambic pentameter of Hamlet's famous soliloquy is very often punctuated (God knows what Shakespeare himself wrote; and God knows if it matters):
<<
To be, or not to be: that is the question ...
>>

The conjunction "or" is generally treated in the same way as "and," and so we usually write "A or B," and only rarely "A, or B."  In this case, editors apparently believe that both readers of the play, and actors playing Hamlet, will not want to move too quickly from "To be."

On the other hand -- and this is the point that I would like all you grammatical legalists to take to heart -- , throwing in that comma can in effect be, as it were, like putting up an unnecessary roadblock obstructing your reader's progress.  And in that case, you are actually giving your reader more work to do.

Consider this nicely punctuated sentence by my new-found hero, Henry David Thoreau -- American, of course, but there is nothing especially American about the punctuation here:
<<
My purpose in going to Walden Pond was not to live cheaply nor to live dearly there, but to transact some private business with the fewest obstacles; to be hindered from accomplishing which for want of a little common sense, a little enterprise and business talent, appeared not so sad as foolish.
>>

A comma after "enterprise" would be most unwelcome.

It is most certainly NOT true, dear JMG, not ALWAYS true anyway, that "the writer's job is to make the reader's job as easy as possible."  Yes, we are right to deplore the lazy, pompous, jargon-filled and obfuscating styles of many a business writer, government writer and academic.  (Note, by the way, how in that last sentence, your beloved "Oxford comma" is gracefully eschewed not once but twice.)

But, on the other hand, there are malign writers who are able to make it so very easy and effortless for us readers, that before we realize what is happening, we are sliding down a slippery slope, into a slough of deception.

And by the same token, there are great and good writers who require us to leap through hoops, so as to teach us to soar.  E.g., Shakespeare famously can be very difficult to follow; other favorites of mine, sometimes nearly impossible truly to understand, are Jane Austen, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry James.

Mihan,
your examples are good ones, but do not justify establishing an unbreakable rule.  As I hope to have shown, there are lots of cases in which the "Oxford comma" is unnecessary and unwelcome.

Sorry about the New York Times and its strict guidelines on style.  William Safire often finds fault with them.  But I suppose it makes life easier for them, to adhere to a code of consistency.

My own favorite flakey classistic purism, "connexion" (instead of "connection"), I have never once got past an editor, but that does not stop me from using it over and over again.  I also like "analyse" (instead of "analyze"), again for a reason having to do with classical etymology.  And NOT for any Anglophilia, as much as I love Brits: "honor," "ardor," "realise," and "civilize" are closer to their classical origins than "honour," "ardour," "realise" and "civilise," so in these cases I cleave to the American usage.

Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.

Sadly, since I went to British schools until college, I cannot spell worth a damn and realise that I am always analysing things incorrectly.

Still, would it kill anyone to include an extra comma for clarity?

Of course, in the last sentence of my long comment of yesterday afternoon, I meant to write "realize" the first time around, right next to "civilize," and not "realise."

Mihan,
yes, there is no disputing that we would all be better off, if only writers could see their way to using punctuation sensibly.

JABailo,
yes, inasmuch as the order and grouping of elements in mathematical (and logical) notation are significant, they function in a way analogous to how word order and punctuation are significant in writing a language.

In this case, the presence or absence of an "Oxford comma" seems to have a subtle, not unimportant effect, but hardly alters the meaning of a sentence.  But in other cases, the presence or absence of a comma can be crucially important.  The 2004 bestseller, "Eats, Shoots and Leaves," by the British author Lynne Truss, is about how very significant commas and other forms of punctuation can be.  The title is the quote of a mispunctuated sentence from an article about the Giant Panda; it ought to have read, "The Giant Panda eats shoots and leaves," but by mistake a comma got printed after "eats," and the meaning of the sentence was changed radically.

BioD,
what do you think of this little hypothesis of mine, about how male human beings use language?: Most men, being social primates who feel they need to compete for a secure position in their society, as well as for reproductive success, dread ever having to admit to fears, doubts, weaknesses and ignorances.  Therefore, when they speak, they tend to prefer simple declarative statements, or else aggressive expressions of boasting and mockery, and verbal forms of intimidation (bullying, threatening and so forth).  And they tend to avoid more nuanced and tentative forms of expression, e.g. "if only this were the case," "it might be true that ... ," "if I could, I would do such-and-such ... ," which might betray self-doubt, ignorance and confusion.

Related to this is that beloved old chestnut, that when a man is driving a car with a meaningful female companion as passenger, and on his way to their destination he gets lost, he is extremely reluctant to admit that he is lost, and he is equally reluctant to ask a stranger for directions.

So is all this just part of an offensive sexist stereotype?  Or is there a decent chance that it may be true?  : )

Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.

The University of Chicago Manual of Style also endorses the serial comma, so this isn't some transoceanic divide.  (One large organization I copyedit for bases its own internal style manual on Chicago's, and I spend far more time than I'd like to admit just plopping in commas.  While listening to edifying music, of course.)  

No disrepect to Oxford (or to serial writers, or serial killers, or to cereal) but I've always heard this referred to as the Harvard comma.  Must be growing up in the Boston area.

I do favor the Harvard comma, but I imagine I am a bit "sloppy" with its use.  I think that I do abuse comma rules every now and then, although one of my pet peeves is the "verbal pause" comma:

==
Bob and Shirley, went out to eat, and while at the restaurant, saw a cat, running out of the kitchen!
===

Funny to hear the quotations discussion as I've always been taught that punctuation goes inside of the quotes; it drives me crazy to see it on the outside.  

but not incorrect.  From "The New Fowler's English Usage," 3rd ed., of 1996, edited by R.W. Burchfield, s.v. comma:

<<
...
3 Where and, but, or or [note the "Oxford comma" after "but"] join two or more adjectives the comma is usually omitted [note the absence of a comma after "adjectives," where I think one ought to be placed]: a reluctant and limited step; the imaginative and dangerous energy of the son; solid but adventurous entrepreneurs; no extensive or protracted military intervention.

4 Where more than two words or phrases or groupings occur together in a sequence, a comma should precede the and (the omission of the second comma in the fourth example would render the sentence ambiguous).  This is the so-called 'Oxford comma'.  Examples: an index of social, economic, and religious diversity; excesses of public, political, and intellectual opinion; areas of natural beauty, architectural monuments, and sites of historical interest; New premises were opened by Marks & Spencer, Jaeger, and Currys.  [I would probably not use the comma in the first and second examples -- it depends on the context -- , but would keep it in the third as well as the fourth examples.]
     The 'Oxford comma' is frequently, but in my view unwisely, omitted by many other publishers.  Their preference is to omit it as a general rule (e.g. tea, scones and cake) [Hurray!] but to insert it if there is a danger of misunderstanding (tea, bread and butter, and cake -- examples from J. McDermott, 1990) [Yip yip!].  A fuller example: The Mind of South Africa is an extremely ambitious blend of personal memoir, ideological polemic and orthodox history -- R. Malan in London Rev. Books 1990.
>>

Here are two nice examples, from Thomas S. Kane's "The New Oxford Guide to Writing" (1988):

<<
Fifty years ago, when all type was set by hand, the labor of several men was required to print, fold, and arrange in piles the signatures of a book.
   Carl Becker

His plan was to clinch his teeth, shut his eyes, whirl the club round his head and bring it down with sickening violence in the general direction of the sphere.
   P.G. Wodehouse
>>

I entirely agree with the need for the comma in the first example, and approve of its absence in the second.

Kane goes on to recommend:

<<
But whether you choose to place a comma between the final coordinated items or to leave it out, you should follow the same practice consistently in any piece of writing.
>>

I agree that using the "Oxford comma" is up to the individual writer or editor.  I disagree that consistency is always of maximum importance in every kind of prose.

Consider the nuanced use, or non-use, of commas in this English translation of the Nicene Creed, approved for use in Roman Catholic churches in the US:

<<
...
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered, died, and was buried.
...
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
...
>>

The total omission of commas in the second sentence is very unusual, and verges on poetry -- and that is entirely appropriate for a prose text used in liturgy.

Clearly, not only is there nothing exclusively British about using the "Oxford comma," there is nothing generally British about it either.  Even Fowler's new editor, the "distinguished Oxford lexicographer" Robert Burchfield, cannot do worse than call the many British writers, editors and publishers who reject it "unwise."

Nor does he explain why that rejection is "unwise."  As I see it, we all agree that "A and B," with no comma after A, is perfectly natural and problem-free.  But in the case of "A, B, ... , N and N+1," "N and N+1" is really just a re-appearance of "A and B," and so to insist always on a comma after N would be unnatural writing.  To insert the comma requires justification.

Worst of all, manuals of style and usage such as Fowler's and the U. of Chicago's do not make clear that English prose is not at all a monolithic, unitary thing, for which one can pronounce universal decrees. Kate Turabian was far more sensible, in limiting herself to just one limited genre.

Even within a single big newspaper, such as the New York Times, more than one style is required: the styles of news articles, new analyses, editorials, letters to the editor and op-eds are all distinctive, and it would be wrong to impose the same rules on all of them.  William Safire, who used to have an op-ed column and continues with his "On Language" column in the Magazine, from time to time complains that the way he would have liked to write something was vetoed by the editors.  In this matter at least, he is right, and they are wrong.  Any writer, writing under his or her own name, including columnists, writers of letters-to-the-editor and op-ed contributors, should be granted a great deal of discretion regarding punctuation, and perhaps even spelling.

One small example of a stylistic choice we make, whether or not we realize it, is our answer to the question, "Am I to write contractions?"  E.g., should I write "don't," and not "do not"?  It seems that too many writers thoughtlessly and automatically use contractions, not realizing that the formality of the document that they are writing makes them inappropriate.  My own attitude is, they should always be allowed in quotations of direct speech, since we naturally use contractions in direct speech; but they should never be used in formal, impersonal prose; and they should be allowed in letters, op-ed contributions, blogs and e-mails, where the writers intend to give the impression of speaking to readers directly.

Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.

Thanks for your brilliant comment, which confirms all sorts of stereotypes and prejudices of mine.

FYI, it was by very self-conscious design that I wrote "feel they need to compete," intending to yank your chain.  And so I did!; and you reacted exactly as I predicted to myself you would! : )

It is true that I have never had any interest in observing or mastering instruments of power, force or speed; and while I can understand the pleasure of actually playing a sport, I cannot understand at all the fascination of spectator sports, e.g. following a team through its season, game by game, statistic by statistic, culminating in either grief or rejoicing, and either way a delicious period of recrimination.  And as you might imagine, NASCAR, which combines spectator sports with spectacularly fast machines, is an especially profound mystery to me: I have no idea why in the world anybody is doing anything at a NASCAR race, save for the little people in the shadows who are trying to make money out of it.

But be assured, I most certainly understand that I belong to a small minority of men, in this regard.

To add to my hypothesis on men and language use: Along the lines of "real men do not eat quiche," "real men" resist using a very expressive vocabulary, e.g. adjectives such as "hideous," "loathsome," "poignant," "touching," "magnificent," "exquisite," save for the purpose of expressing irony or mockery.  And even then they have to be careful.

But it is interesting that the small number of men who dedicate themselves to artistic expression, especially in performance arts involving music, dance and acting, often have great sexual success (or so we are given to understand).  So how are we to explain the great affection (if we may so put it) that many women feel for male singer/songwriters who write and sing lyrics that might be described as poignant, touching, magnificent and exquisite?

Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.

To your point, Canis, that men resist using an expressive vocabulary, I have to reply that I find very few people of either gender using an expressive, or impressive, vocabulary these days.  Perhaps in our time-is-money culture, adjectives, especially multi-syllabic ones, will simply fall by the wayside as too time-consuming, too cumbersome, too erudite, and too incompatible with our sound-bite, I'm-Just-a-Regular-Guy, Folksy = Popular zeitgeist.

In fact, I'm sure there are quite a few words in the previous paragraph that I would need to define to friends, male or female.  The other day, in the space of an afternoon, I had to define:

-dirigible
-nouveau riche
-pectin
-decompensate

these to a 32-year old woman with a Master's in psychology, a demanding job in a scientific field, and a quick mind.

So perhaps it is not that men are trying not to appear expressive as much as 1) it does not occur to them to be, or 2) they do not know how to be.

Kaela

Mr. Bailo,

Don't you dare bring mathemetics into the grammatical equation!  Grammar is the one that I know.  Don't ruin it by mentioning, gulp, algebra.  ;-)

* Greta runs screaming.  "The nightmares, the nightmares. Oh horror, make them stop!" *

www.NoPunProductions.com ~ AmericaTheGreen.org

Greta,
be of good cheer.  Being a mathophobe myself, I can report that at least at the shallow end of the pool, math can be refreshing, and even fun at times.  And, math rules and equations are only superficially like grammatical rules and sentences.  They both use symbolism and logic to appeal to human creativity, but they do that in radically different ways.

BioD,
I am sorry; from your last brief message, I gather I must have gravely misunderstood something important that you had written earlier, and playfully run off with it in a direction not to your liking.  Please know that I take all that you say very seriously, and mean no disrespect.

Kaela,
yes, I see what you are saying.  But I do not think either deficient education, limited interest or absent desire to express oneself is quite what I am getting at.

We all have a very large passive vocabulary, I think; i.e., we know and can recognize many words that we ourselves would not actively use.  (Specialized words are another matter: at least I have heard of "pectin," and can look it up; but I never heard of "decompensate.")  And I do not see why women should have larger passive vocabularies than men -- save if we assume that women read more, and more challenging stuff, than men do, which is not impossible.  But part of this little, vaguely sexist hypothesis of mine is to suggest that (most) women generally do not feel any social pressure that would prohibit them from making some of their passive vocabulary active, if ever they should feel the need to, but (most) men do indeed feel so inhibited.

But, you know, maybe that is analogous to what happens to girls in school (or so it has been reported): although they may be excellent and highly motivated students in, say, science when they are in an all-girl environment, once they are moved to a mixed-gender environment they become uninterested and "dumb" (in both senses of the word).

Anyway, far be it from me to pronounce on what pressures women do and do not feel.  It just seems that everybody, whether male or female, feels strongly about at least one thing in all the world, and within that area has a clear sense of a scale of evaluation, from "very very good, than which nothing can be better" at one end, to "very very bad, than which nothing can be worse" at the other.  And probably there are moments in everybody's life, when he or she would really like to say something, evaluative and expressive, about that special something, to a willing listener.  So, at those moments, what does he or she say?  And, how does he or she say it?

According to our stereotypes, women seem better at providing one another with occasions for that kind of expression than men.  But it is interesting that men do indeed tend to blossom when it comes to sports.  One might suggest some reasons for that, but not right now.  Since you are an athlete and a sports fan, though, you no doubt will have observed that the genre of print journalism, and TV journalism too, I guess, that has given greatest freedom to men to be expressive, creative, silver-tongued, even poetic, and overflowing in rich vocabulary, is sports journalism.  By way of convenient illustration, there is a brilliant, fascinating little piece by Alan Schwarz, in yesterday's New York Times, on the second page of the Week in Review section, on the close of the current baseball season, the inevitable randomness of play-offs, and the futility of the prayer, "May the best team win."  One purple passage:

<<
March Madness, the 64-team, single-elimination bacchanalia that annually burps out the college basketball champion, celebrates the tantalizing chance that an upstart underdog can get hot for two hours and send Goliath packing.
>>

Can you believe it, a man actually wrote that!  That is almost as good as Umbra Fisk!

As it happens, there are two very interesting Oxford-comma-related sentences in the same Week in Review section of yesterday.

First, John Burns, former Baghdad bureau chief, and my favorite reporter by far from Iraq, wrote a piece of war journalism unlike anything else I have ever read, on one level about his relationship with stray cats in the reporters' compound, on another about how human beings there, as well as cats, must deal with constant death, danger, helplessness and abandonment.  He quotes this interesting sentence, from a "command bulletin" of the US Army, issued by way of explaining its ban of animal mascots:

<<
"They're cute, furry, and more dangerous than you think."
>>

The contraction "They're" is bad style for a command bulletin, I should think.  But the Oxford comma after "furry" is perfect.  First, the C element is much longer than the A and B elements.  Secondly, the A and B elements are going in one direction, meaning-wise, but then the C element comes along and takes off in an ironically altogether new direction.

As for John Burns, I love him more than ever.

Second, in a bitter censure of us, the American public, for remaining silent despite ever more reports of injustices and abuses in Iraq, perpetrated by Americans, Frank Rich writes:

<<
As Mrs. Bush spoke [last week, about the human rights atrocities in Burma], two women, both Armenian Christians, were gunned down in Baghdad by contractors underwritten by American taxpayers.  On this matter, the White House has been silent. ... The gunmen who mowed down the two Christian women worked for a Dubai-based company managed by Australians, registered in Singapore and enlisted as a subcontractor by an American contractor headquartered in North Carolina.
>>

Rich might have inserted an Oxford comma after "Singapore," but that would not have been necessary for the sake of clarity.  As it stands, the sentence is plenty clear; and it gathers power and a head of steam without the delaying comma.

Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.

Canis can I use commas like this?

The Blackwater CEO truly is a korrupt,konfederate, kristian,kriminal,korporate krusader.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

I'm with you on the unnecessary "pause" commas. A certain person (whose writing I am often unfortunate enough to edit) is fond of these, but then doesn't put commas in where they really should be. Drives me crazy.

He also mixes up his "line" punctuations: hyphens, minus signs, en-dashes, and em-dashes are all interchangeable to him.

It is a cruel trick of history, that very bad politics and good looks are too often found in the same person.  Recall the Nazi propaganda movie that so fascinated the gay prisoner in "Kiss of the Spider Woman."

But yes, Amazing, your sentence is fine, even with all those jolly Krautish Ks.  Just remember to put a space after each one.

By the way, you do not put an "and" before the last adjective, "korporate."  Not only is that quite correct, it is rhetorically very effective.  And it even has its own name: asyndeton, which means the absence of a connexion.  It is also called parataxis, which means the placement of elements immediately next to one another.

Mihan and Kaela,
I think I would probably write Kaela's sentence like this: "Bob and Shirley went out to eat, and, while at the restaurant, saw a cat running out of the kitchen!"  So I got rid of two commas, after "Shirley" and "cat," and added one after "and."  I do not think we can do without the commas before and after "while at the restaurant."

But then the question may be asked, does a cat running out of a kitchen deserve an exclamation point?  Now if Kaela had said, "saw a panther running out of the kitchen," that would be another matter entirely.

Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.

I think the simplest rule for the use of a serial comma is to ask, how clear is the message being conveyed?  If adding the comma clarifies then add the comma.  If adding the comma confuses then do not add it.

1, 2 and 3

1, 2, and 3

The former tells me that 2 and 3 are united and separate from 1... in other words it's (1) and (2 and 3)

The latter tells me that each of the 3 is separate from the other 2... in other words it's (1) and (2) and (3)

That's the convention that I understand and it's the one I communicate.

Perhaps the author wants you to pause where he/she wants the flow of information paused.

If that is the case, is it the editor's place to "correct" this supposedly wrongly placed comma?

or must everyone try to imitate Gaddis and McCarthy and Faulkner and Joyce and never use any punctuation because it needs to be left to the reader I mean the question of whether and when to pause for any reason that is what needs to be left to the reader because in the end its the readers view that matters most and not the authors intent because really who is the author anyway he is just some monkey at the keyboard the real brains of the operation is the editor so make sure the author knows that when you put in the punctuation that you find correct you should always highlight it for the author in a draft preview copy so that your point gets driven home with righteous anger and derogation of the lowly author okay